


a nurse's calling

by itllbeall-dwight (dupesoclock)



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends Speedrun (Not Clickbait), Gen, Platonic Relationships, temporary alliances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:02:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28030608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dupesoclock/pseuds/itllbeall-dwight
Summary: Quentin span around to face the woman, looking up at her as her fragile form cast a shadow over him, holding his injured hands with the other as he pushed himself away from her with his feet. Scramble, scramble away like a rat, and maybe - maybe - he could stay alive long enough to return to the campfire.But the nurse had other plans.--still attached to the fragments of her past life, she is drawn to the boy in need of help.
Relationships: Sally Smithson | The Nurse & Quentin Smith
Kudos: 43





	a nurse's calling

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for an ask on tumblr. it was meant to be a small drabble for a warmup. i went a little apeshit. i can never do things in halves. i hate it here.
> 
> anyways I think quentin can get a killer mom as a treat. sally can have a son as a treat. she cares him.
> 
> tumblr link [here](https://itwillbeall-dwight.tumblr.com/post/637324699691532288/speaking-of-quen-recently-just-realized-him-n-the), please share around if you can, and happy holidays!

It should have been a simple affair.

  


After someone (read: David, because who else would it be?) came back from his last trial hobbling and stained in his own blood, it soon became clear that the medical supplies at the campfire were running the lowest that they had been in a while. While Nea, oddly focused for someone who liked to backtalk, rationed out what little gauze was left to heal the cursing Bret, Claudette had calmly asked Quentin to look for some more supplies around the realms (“you know what you’re looking for” she’d reasoned with him), before they had to patch each other up with wet leaves and best wishes. And he was more than happy to do so - moving around stopped him from thinking, which stopped him from falling asleep, and even if Freddy’s powers were much weaker here than they had once been, he wasn’t willing to risk a nap to find out to what extent that was true.

  


But now he was here, away from the light of the campfire and drowning in the smell of smoke from the old asylum, he was starting to regret it. Not regret helping, of course, but regretting coming here first. He thought of it like a failsafe - there were lots of places to hide from a killer, from tight spaces in the chapel to the white noise of the travelling carnival, so if he were to be spotted, there was a higher chance to escape in one piece. Somehow, though, the old asylum building was even more imposing now than it had ever been. There was no sun, yet it still cast a deliberate, foreboding shadow over him as he took slow, precise steps, pulling at his jacket sleeves to hide his hands (was he cold or just plain nervous? He couldn’t tell) as he heard the sound of old dirt crunching under his feet. Quentin sucked in a breath, exhaling slowly, but keeping the tension in his shoulders as he entered, keeping a hand on the open doorway as he looked down the halls. No sign of anyone, at least for now. Good. This would be quick - it had to be, for the sake of himself.

  


Quentin walked up the stairs carefully, trying to ignore the way the floor panels creaked under his feet, as if they would break under his weight. It didn’t help the creep factor the place already had in the slightest, especially with the way the wind whistled through open windows and drops like whispers from the damned. He shivered as he reached the top of the stairs, quickly checking behind him for eyes burning into the back of his head to find that there was nothing, not a spectre to be found. Swallowing down his apprehension and releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding, the survivor quickly shuffled into the centre room, stepping around the rotting holes in the floor and promptly ignoring the rubble dust that gathered around the edges and fell to the floor below. Quickly spotting the chest he was looking for, Quentin got down on one knee and picked the lock to it with ease, opening it up and digging through the scraps of metal and dirt that laid at the bottom. He cringed at the noise it made, both because it was terrible to the senses and incredibly loud, pausing every so often to check for unwanted company.

“It’s fine,” he muttered to himself, forcing his breathing to remain steady. “Just look here and get out. It’s alright, it’s OK-”

He was so focused on keeping himself calm, however, that he didn’t notice his hand sweeping right into the sharp side of a metal shard in the chest, slicing into his palm with a worrying efficiency. Quentin pulled his hand out of the chest with a yelp, falling on his ass with a wince as the lid of the chest slammed shut. If his aim had been to create as much noise as possible, then oh boy, was he a champion. If was harder to breathe as anxiety welled up in the pit of his stomach, his heartbeat ringing in his ears like a bell, back-and-forth and constant-

  


Though not loud enough to conceal the strained breathing down his neck that made him freeze up in fear.

  


She didn’t move, and neither did he, keeping his eyes focused on the wall - or, more specifically, the hold on it, a broken window leading to the outside straight in front if him, like a walkway to heaven. Could he make it, if he just… took a leap of faith and booked it? No, that was a stupid move - even if he somehow didn’t hurt himself from the fall, if this killer was who he thought she was (and she probably was, from the strangled noises that sounded like breathing and the smell of smoke that was so much stronger now than it had been before), she could catch up and kill him in seconds, as he’d watched her do in countless trials before.

The breathing from behind got closer, and the tenseness in his shoulders was starting to ache, especially when he flinched at the cold hand that touched his back.

Quentin span around to face the woman, looking up at her as her fragile form cast a shadow over him, holding his injured hands with the other as he pushed himself away from her with his feet. Scramble, scramble away like a rat, and maybe -  _ maybe _ \- he could stay alive long enough to return to the campfire.

But the nurse had other plans. She floated after him, an arm outstretched as if to grab him and choke him. That was the fear response in his brain told him, anyways, as it screamed at him to flee, begged him to do something,  _ anything _ . But he stayed, back hitting the edge of the open doorway and making him stop his crawl, looking at the ghastly woman. She seemed… different, somehow, though still menacing from the angle he looked at her from now. She was not armed, nor seeming to focus on attacking him, and while she still sounded as if breathing was a trying task, she did not seem as pained as she usually did. Was she really here to kill him?

He looked at her outstretched hand, following where it led and looking down at his still bleeding hand, dark red staining the canvas of his jacket. Is this what she wanted? The panic response in his head still told him this was it, he was going to die if he didn’t do something, but Quentin swallowed, and held his wounded hand up to her, to test what she would do.

Assuming her eyes fell to the cut, and the way his blood dripped to the dirty floor below where her feet would have touched it, the nurse moved her hand to hold it (her grip was delicate, but ice cold), floating down gently and tucking her legs under himself as she sat just inches away from him, where his knees were bundled to his chest. She studied the injury with what he hoped was a kind and expert eye, turning his hand over to inspect it for anything else that may have caused him pain.

  


They remained in silence as she inspected his hand, careful not to cause him pain and flinching as he winced very briefly… much different from the nurse he thought he knew.

She took a deep inhale, preparing to speak with great effort, the voice that came out of her raspy but still somehow soothing, as if she’d been screaming for a thousand years but screaming to save others and not herself. “May I… help?”

Quentin blinked. She was asking him for permission. Somewhat stunned, he nodded slightly, letting his hand fall before she caught it again when she released her grip, as she pulled his sleeve up to cover the cut on his palm and closed his fingers into a fist to hold the hem in place.

“Pressure,” she clarified, barely above a whisper, before she shuffled on her knees over to the chest just beside him. The nurse opened it up, first and foremost taking the sharp piece of metal stained in his blood out and putting it to the side, before she began digging through the contents of the chest herself.

The survivor watched her movements, the way she was slow and deliberate, though never unnerving like a monster, or any other killer, would have made him feel. Though he was still slightly on edge, unsure of her motives at this point, there was a… calming sensation to her aura. Like a warm fire in the dead of winter, to match the stench of smoke that clung onto her so desperately.

She eventually pulled out an old medkit from the chest, holding it while she closed the lid with the other hand. After checking the contents of the kit very quickly, she turned to him again. “May I… have your hand, again? My dear?”

“...Ah, uh, yeah.” He held it out to her as she turned to fully face him and take it again, trying not to shiver at the ice-cold touch against his skin while she pulled the sleeve away.

  


And that’s how he found himself, for several minutes, sat on the floor of an abandoned asylum, with a fearsome killer doing on him. She hummed a lullaby to herself that he vaguely recognized, wrapping his bleeding hand with motherly care. He played out thousands of scenarios in his head when he first arrived to this realm, but admittedly, this was not one of them - it was almost unnerving. What if this was all a trap? Was she really that smart of plant those seeds?

“What is your name?” She asked, as if nothing was wrong.

Quentin paused “Wh- I, well… you first?”

She stayed silent for a moment, keeping her gaze on his hand as she tied off the gauze with a tight bow. “I… I’m Sally.”

“Sally....” he repeated. It was so normal - well, what did he expect? She must have been human once, right? Maybe?

“And you?”

Ah. Now he was trapped by social obligations. “It’s, uh… Quentin.”

“Quentin…” she copied him, repeating his name in a similarly wistful way, before letting out a slight chuckle. “Odd, but charming.”

“Uh… thanks?” This whole thing was surreal - this woman, who he had seen end lives as quickly as snuffing out an open flame, was speaking to him, so politely, so  _ casually _ . He moved to rest folded arms against his knees, the thought of running still lingering in the back of his mind, but growing quieter by the minute.

“Why are you here, Quentin? It’s-” She stopped herself to quickly cough and inhale air, as if she was dying. “...dangerous, here.”

He swallowed, before holding up his injured hand. “Funnily enough, it was… this.”

She tilted her head. “A… hand injury?”

“I- no,” he sighed, shaking his head. “...I walked into that one, to be fair.”

Sally chuckled, the melody light and fluffy to cut through the tense air. “A little, yes. It was… supplies?”

He nodded. “We, well- yeah, we’re running out, and… you get it.”

“Well, I… hm,” the nurse mumbled to herself, watching herself cup her chin between two fingers in thought as she seemed to ponder something, before meeting Quentin’s eyes once more. “I will do so.”

“Huh?”

“I will find the items to… help your friends. It’s dangerous here - my neighbours are…” She paused, trying to think of the nicest way to articulate her thoughts. “...Not the hospitable type.”

A killer warning him of another killer almost made him laugh, but he bit his tongue. “Can you do that?”

Sally nodded. “Please think of it as… an apology.”

“Apology?”

Again, she nodded, even going so far to touch the back of his hand, watching as he flinched under her fingertips. “An apology… that your reaction to me must be that.”

Oh. That almost made him feel guilty.

“Please don’t feel sad for me, my dear. You are… a good young man. I remember you.” She pulled her hand away to rest it on her tap again. “We all have roles to play. You, as a survivor, a saint, and myself….”

A sinner, he finished in his head, as she trailed off, leaving the two of them in silence. Quentin could not see her face, but he could feel her frown, and the glazed-over expression in her eyes as whatever was haunting her came to whisper nothings in the back of her brain. He knew that all too well. “...You were nice enough to help me. Maybe you’re… not as bad as you think.”

She looked back up at him, gently shaking her head in disagreement, but not saying anything more as she rose to her feet, holding out her hand for him to take, which he did as he stood to his feet. The nurse led him out of the building and to the edge of the forest, campfire in sight. Sally pulled her hand away to usher him to return to his friends, and as she did so, he hoped she didn’t notice the way his hand moved to hold hers again.

  


(It was as if her comforting nature had made him forget exactly who she was, and what she was capable of.)

  


The encounter was replayed in his head over and over, as trials passed and he heard stories of them, hoping not to hear of the nurse that treated him so well when he’d intruded on her lands. The group had tried not to be too mad with him when he returned empty-handed, r too pushy about the injury he’d sustained later going out to another realm in a small group and managing to gather just enough to help them out. He was just starting to wonder about the offer she’d made, when a tap on his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts, reminding him that the fog still progressed even without him, and there were trials to participate in - for  _ him _ to participate in this time, more specifically. Looking up to Steve, who patiently smiled back at him, Quentin stood to his feet-

“Oi, who left these here?”

Looking over to a tree a short distance away from where he was sitting, he saw David, crouched down by the base of it with a concerned look on his face.

“Left what?” Steve called back, approaching with Quentin in tow, following David’s gaze as he folded his arms across his chest.

The brawler signalled down with an open hand, to the pile of medkits and medical supplies - a collection none too shabby, by the standards of the fog - that lay scattered at his feet, loosely assembled in one place, as if they were left in a rush.

Quentin thought back to the asylum again, to the promise he’d made with the killer. Was this her debts, left in haste before anyone suspected a thing? He put his hands into his pockets with a slight smile. “I think I know who left them there.”

David looked up at him, over his shoulder. “Who?”

“A friend.”


End file.
